March 30, 2010

Windows Live Wave 4 Milestone 2 leaked, screenshots galore

Screenshots of Windows Live Wave 4 have been leaking for quite some time, but now a build of Essentials has finally leaked. The build number is 15.2.2585.0122, where the first two suggests it is part of the Milestone 2 branch. This is an old build. We have already heard about 15.3.2659.319, which means Windows Live Wave 4 is at least at Milestone 3 right now. Rumors peg a Milestone 3 build being released on May 18, 2010, a beta build being compiled by June 3, 2010, and a beta build being available to the public on June 7, 2010. The dates are very specific dates so we remain skeptical about them.

What we do know, however, are the build numbers for this Milestone 2 leak:

Messenger: 15.2.2583.119

Mail: 15.2.2583.0119

Writer: 15.2.2583.119

Photo Gallery: 15.2.2590.301

Movie Maker: 15.2.2590.0301

Family Safety: 15.2.2583.0119

Sync: 15.2.2587.0212

Bing Bar: 5.0.1411.0

So we're not looking at the latest and greatest, and it's not even in beta, but let's dive in and see what's new anyway.

Setup

The most important part that's worth noting is that this build only works on Windows Vista SP2 (with the Platform Update) and Windows 7, much like the IE9 Platform Preview. Again, just like IE9, it currently does not install on Windows XP (Microsoft could still change its stance, but we're thinking the company is pushing hard to stop supporting XP with new versions of its applications).

The full setup file is 126MB in size (naturally the build that leaked is the offline installer). This is slightly smaller than the 134MB installer for the latest version of Windows Live Essentials Wave 3 but is still rather hefty in size. Microsoft will likely have the online installer (about 1MB) as the default download again with Wave 4 so that users only download the installations for the applications they will be installing. Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't progressed from Wave 3 in the area of needing administrative rights for installing Windows Live Essentials: the installer still has a UAC prompt.

Microsoft has changed the setup loading splash screen to match the splash screens of many of the Windows Live applications.

This screen is also new. The two links at the bottom take you to privacy.microsoft.com and help.live.com, respectively. We'll be installing all the applications, but let's see how the second option looks like.

Again, there are obvious changes from the Wave 3 installer. It's a bit awkward trying to distinguish which applications are going to be updated and which will be installed. The size of the window also results in an unnecessary scroll bar. More importantly, Photo Gallery and Movie Maker now come together. The Windows Live Toolbar has been replaced with the Bing Bar. Windows Live Sync is new, as is Windows Live Companion. The other four remain the same, at least at the installer stage.

The installer screen is also slightly changed. Unfortunately, it still takes unnervingly long—and remember, this is the offline installer. The online one must be even more excruciatingly longer, though we're only at Milestone 2 so Microsoft has lots of time to focus on speed. It's worth noting that the installer killed off any Windows Live applications that were open, but interestingly did not close Internet Explorer, even though the Bing Bar needed to be installed.

Here is the result! Note that the Bing Bar doesn't have a shortcut as it gets installed as an add-on for Internet Explorer.

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